Competition of Personal Data Protection Standards: Differentiation of Article 272.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Article 13.11 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation

The article is devoted to the issues caused by the change in legislation in the field of personal data processing and the introduction of corresponding criminal liability. Thus, Federal Law No. 421-FZ of November 30, 2024 added a new article to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: "Article 272.1. Illegal use and (or) transfer, collection and (or) storage of computer information containing personal data, as well as the creation and (or) ensuring the functioning of information resources intended for its illegal storage and (or) distribution." The emergence of a new criminal article gave rise to a number of questions, one of which was the question of distinguishing the elements of a crime provided for in Art. 272.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation from the elements of an administrative offense provided for in Art. 13.11. of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses. In this article, the author attempts to answer this question and differentiate the illegal acts provided for in Article 272.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Article 13.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. A comparison is made on the objective and subjective side, on the subject of the criminal offense. The groundlessness of a number of approaches proposed for distinguishing these types of offenses is indicated. An approach is formulated in which the distinction must be made based on awareness of the source of origin of computer information containing personal data.